The present invention relates to an apparatus for removing printing material on the recording member recorded by an electro-photographic system.
Conventionally, there has been proposed, from the viewpoint of paper recycling, an apparatus for removing the printing material on the recording member recorded by an electro-photographic system. Such printing material removing apparatus includes one to dissolve or swell the printing material by organic solvent and remove it with a brush or supersonic wave, or one to remove the thermoplastic printing material by heat transfer.
Since the former apparatus is to use organic solvent, it has high possibility to provide problems in safety (in fire protection, influence on human body, etc.) and handling (odor, liquid leakage, etc.), and especially it is not desirable to be used in office.
The latter apparatus is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications No. 1-297294 (1989), No. 4-64472 (1992), No. 4-94958 (1992) and No. 4-116000 (1992). In such apparatuses, a heat-melting releasing member is brought into contact with the recording member and heated. Then the releasing member is cooled and separated from the releasing member, thereby the printing material on the recording member is released and transferred onto the recording member.
In those apparatuses, since the aggregation force between the printing materials (toner) on the recording member is not sufficient, the toner is broken off in the releasing part, so that the toner is not fully transferred to the releasing member but remains on the recording member.
In addition, the aggregation force between the printing materials transferred onto the heat-melting releasing member is also insufficient. Therefore, in the case that the toner removing process is repeated a plurality of times, when the toner once transferred to the heat-melting releasing member subsequently comes into contact with the recording member, a part of toner is broken off from the releasing member to retransfer to the recording member.
Moreover, in the above described apparatuses, it takes a long time to cool the releasing member and the recording member after the releasing member is brought into pressure contact with the recording member and heated. This was a barrier to speed-up of toner removing process.
In the above described apparatuses, a large force is required to separate the recording member from the releasing member, and in actual it is necessary to press the separation blade against the releasing member for a long period. Thus, the surface layer of the releasing member is likely to be peeled.